How easy is it to make your own

[50033]

HI all
I have now made a number of turnouts using C&L kits and have found them easy enough to construct once you get the hang of it. So how easy is it to construct your own? At £25 per kit and £12 per crossing its a bit expensive when you have 20 turnouts to construct. I see stores have the jigs for aids, is it essential to have these? I'm planning on re making my MPD and also constructing a new portable layout. The MPD requires somewhere in the region of 15 turnouts and the new unnamed/planned layout has 5 so far. With cash in short supply like most these days, I'm hoping it's not too big a jump to construct my own track.

Thanks in advance for comments and help

Cheers

Mark

[David Knight]

Hi Mark,

If you have mastered building the kits then IMHO no great leap is necessary to rolling your own. To be on the safe side you might want to pick up a copy of Iain Rice's book "An Approach to Building Finescale Track in 4mm", Wild Swan, ISBN 1 874103 003. Iain's approach uses ply and rivet construction but can easily be adapted to MEKed chairs or whatever. Another reference is Norman Solomon's pair of articles in MRJ 143 & 144 " The Wisdom of Solomon". As long as you have the gauges (essential) you are set to go. Jigs are nice but can be made of scrap materials at nil cost. Your main expenditure will be time as you will have to mess about with half chairs, and of course filing point blades and frogs. Once you get the hang of it you can do a bit of batch production of the bits which will save some time. You have one big gain and that is the ability to do custom work for which kits and RTR turnouts will not work.

I was in a similar position many years ago when I sat down to figure out what a whole mess of turnouts was going to cost me Fortunately I had a pal who had been making his own for years and he taught me the basics and I've never bought a ready made turnout since. Go for it

HTH

David

[grovenor-2685]

The only extra skill needed over and above that need for the kits is the filing of the frog rails and the blades.
Well worth developing the skill. I started before any of the filing jigs were available, I followed the instructions here, http://www.scalefour.org/history/manual/P4-416.htm and have been building my own ever since, the jigs are just filing guides, not essential at all.
See also http://www.norgrove.me.uk/shed-relay.html
This picture shows my method of holding the point and splice rails for soldering.


Feel free to ask for help as needed, only building your own gives you the freedom to model any track arrangement that takes your fancy.
Regards

[50033]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I wonder if it is worth buying a cheap bench grinder to speed up the process. I would expect some sort of jig be made to prevent bending and loss of fingers.

Mark

[David Knight]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I wonder if it is worth buying a cheap bench grinder to speed up the process. I would expect some sort of jig be made to prevent bending and loss of fingers.

Mark

It depends on the kind of rail you are going to use. Steel rail can be ground but you will have much better control with a file. Nickel silver or phosphor bronze will just load up your grinding wheel and leave it useless after a short while especially for the number of turnouts you have in mind . The biggest mistake most people make is trying to use to small or fine a file to start. Jeweler's files are great for details and finishing but for shifting metal an 8" hand smooth will get you where you want to go much faster, faster still would be a second cut and fastest a bastard cut (I'm not being rude here, that is the name for the tooth pattern on the file ). You can find the type of cut by looking at the information stamped on the file just above the handle or tang in un-handled files. Hold you work in a smooth jawed vice or toolmakers (parallel) clamp. I can send a pic if that would help.

HTH

David

[50033]

A photo would be superb and thanks for the advice. I'm not being lazy, I am just thinking about the mass amount of filing I might need to do. I wasn't over keen on the bench grinder as it would be difficult to know how much was enough. I had been thinking of needle files purely as I didn't think too much about the possibilities. A larger 8" file does make more sense and if you can get better cutters then I'm all for it. I will look for some files on line tomorrow.

Cheers

Mark

[jasp]

Hi
I have been struggling with making points - I made some, successfully, about 20 years ago but it seems that age is catching up.
There are some filing jigs available which I have found to be a great help, particularly making and assembling crossing vees These used to be available from S4 stores but at S4um North, only one of the jigs seemed to be available.
They are still available from the EM Gauge society, along with a whole lot of stuff suitable for 18.83.
Talking of the EM Socy, there seems to be a lot of common ground with S4 society and one wonders, especially with discussions about joint exhibitions etc, could there not be some argument in favour of some sort of joint effort in some areas of our respective organisations, for example stores?
Cheers
Jim

[Andy G]

I think you'll find that the issue with the crossing and switch filing jigs is supply from the manufacturer - basically it has stopped for the time being and therefore only those jigs still sat on the shelf are available.
Andy

[David Knight]

I promised, a pic which displays the tools I use for point construction. Unfortunately I keep getting messages that tell me my picture is too big and must in fact be 1027 pixels x 0 pixels. Quite how I do this with a 104 kb image is beyond me at the moment. Making turnouts is easier...

Cheers,

David

[grovenor-2685]

David,
The 1027 x 0 is supposed to mean that the width must not exceed 1027 whilst the height is not checked. Since that is apparently not what is happening I have changed it.
Please try again.
Regards

[David Knight]

tools for the job.jpg

Pics as promised, thanks to Keith for sorting the attachment problem

Cheers,

David

[grovenor-2685]

Thanks David,
Note if you keep the photos below 1024 pixels wide then they will be displayed in line.
Like this.

tools for the job.jpg

Regards